The Prequel
by TryRunAgainstTheWind
Summary: This is a story pre Inception; it's a story that follows the characters, Ariadne, Arthur, Eames, Cobb etc., into the mysterious depths of their childhood, teenage years, and college lives. You'd be surprised how many times their lives intersect. It's a compilation of memories and observations of their predicament, but showing us how they became the people that we meet in Inception.


**In Inception, Christopher Nolan delved deep into the story, but I wondered what the reasons were that made the characters what they were in the story. So here's a fanfiction about them! Each of the characters, first their childhood, then their teenage years, and then their college years and developing into the people they are. **

**You'd be surprised how much they intersect and interconnect throughout their early lives.**

**Please tell me if I should continue with this!  
R&R C:**

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**Ariadne:**

My earliest memory is a pleasant one. It's one I think about a lot, looking back. I was visiting my aunt in Detroit; a visit made only once every two months. I was five, and I remember the sunlight spilling through the grimy windows. To say my aunt Gurdy's house was old would be a vast understatement; her house was _ancient_. The windows were long and thin, with generations of dust and dirt stuck in its panels. I used to be frightened of the house's looming corridors, squeaking floorboards and crackling fireplaces, but as I grew older and Gurdy sicker, I realized with growing fondness that the house was beautiful.

But on this particular day, my mother left to the market and my father was away with work. It was only me and the remarkable girth of my aunt remaining in her dusty house. I tried not to cry, but fear got the better of me. As tears fell down my face, and a whine threatened at my lips, my aunt did the most, in my five year old eyes, extraordinary thing. She took out a large vat of pant, and a rolled bulk of paper.

"Would you like to do some finger painting dear?" she asked, smiling. Her red lipstick clung to her teeth. I peered over her shoulder and saw cartons of reds, yellows and purples. The tears dried in my eyes and I stared wide eyed at Gurdy. "Or we can do some body painting?" She showed me the paint again and my fear disappeared. I nodded and a grin took hold of my face.

When my mother returned to Gurdy's, she found me in my princess shorts and a vest, drenched in a mush of colours. Haphazard cupcakes littered the counter top, and massive sheets of paper containing explosions of colour hung outside in the waning sunshine. I like to think that Gurdy gave me an outlet to be creative. That she was the root to my desire of being an architect.

I like to think that, when I remember my kind aunt. She died of an aneurism when I was twelve. She fell asleep and never woke. I didn't cry much at her funeral, because I never truly realized I'd never see her red and white smile again. But one fine day, I visited my mother from college, and she asked me to clear out the attic for her. Her knees were at her again. As I pulled out a large box of dusty files, I saw a painting of my handprints and footprints on large, once rolled paper. I unfurled its curly corners, and saw my aunt's neat writing: _Ariadne, age 5  
_And I began to cry. There were dozens of them, each with abstract and childlike shapes. I looked in the face of my innocence, and remembered Gurdy's red and white smile, and I wished I'd thanked her. Just once.

I was born in 1989 in the local maternity hospital in Michigan. My father wasn't present, as he sought refuge in an asylum for his mental health. But he loved Greek mythology, and both parents had decided on my name as soon as they found out I was a girl. My mother was a cryptographer, cracking hidden codes for the government. It sounds awfully exciting, but she usually just went to her office and did crosswords.

My mother is a kind, but reserved woman. She's half Irish, and when she was young, she was beautiful; night dark hair to her chin, blue eyes, and delicate pale skin. I inherited her open face and petite figure. Whereas my father was tall and stout, with wild brown curls and chocolate eyes. He is the polar opposite to reserved. While my mother gave me crosswords and riddles to tackle during lunch, my father and I would drive to derelict towns, and point out historical monuments. He used have a motorbike and all, but I was always forbidden to go on it… when my mother was around.

They were well into their thirties when I was born; my mother had suffered from three miscarriages before I arrived. I have no brothers or sisters, only shoebox sized coffins buried by our yew tree. My mother never really recovered from that; she was always filled with an underlying sadness. I didn't acknowledge this until my late teens, but I used see her pruning our awful lilies with silent tears running down her face. She grew them just by the graves.

I was born in the local hospital, two weeks premature, barely weighing six pounds. My childhood had seemed simple at the time, only when I look back do I see the messy, cluttered secrets that both my parents hid. Not only from me, but from each other. The early days were the best; my father returned from the asylum, and slowly brought my mother back to life. We went on picnics, walks to the beach, holidays. My parents often went out for drinks and later went dancing. As I grew more intelligent, my father would read me Greek myths, and my mother would solve puzzles with me.

But just after the summer of painting in my aunt's, I started school. My mother put my wispy brown hair in two plaits, and bought me black shiny shoes with red ribbon on them. On Wednesdays, I would return home with paint in my hair, ears and caked beneath my fingernails; Wednmesdays were Art Afternoons. Some days I would run away from my teachers and parents. I would seek refuge in the copse of my backgarden, up the yew tree. I usually got in trouble in school for constantly questioning everyone's motives.

"I'm going to read you The Cat in The Hat today, class."

"Why, Miss Potley?"

"Ariadne," she'd sigh. "We're reading it because I said so."

"Yes, but why? I think we should read the Hungry Catapillar."

"We read that yesterday dear. Now just relax and enjoy the story." she'd say, an edge in her voice. But after days and days of this incessant questioning and badgering, the teacher would eventually snap and give me an earful. My mother would quietly agree with her, as she found my constant wonderings utterly frustrating, and usually enjoyed being left in peace with her thoughts. It's not that I would chat about random things; I asked valid questions: Why is the sky blue, Mum? Is that old man going to die soon? What happens when I die, Mum?

But my Dad relished my curiosity. He told me he wanted to trap my innocent yearn for knowledge in a treasure box, and I said to him, "But if it was in a treasure box, then someone would find a map to it and steal it." He laughed, and told me a story about the Greek goddess, Ariadne, associated mostly with labyrinthes and mazes. He told me endless stories of the Gods' fights, of Hercules and the demigods. Now I see the Percy Jackson series in every ten year old's backpack, and I smile.

But things changed after I went to school. My dad didn't return to his mental asylum, so he taught at a local university. There were only like twelve in his class, but he taught with such enthusiasm that he caught the eye of publishers of some small history channel. He got a few articles in the paper and discussed Ancient Civilisations with some big philosopher and historian on tv. Perhaps I should have noticed his changing morals, but I was only seven.

My mother didn't laughed less and less as each school year progressed. I'd often find her by the graves, but I knew to leave her alone. My parents didn't talk as much, and only argued over the red lettered bank statements. Where my father had once brouught my mother to life, he found her sliding somewhere dark and cold, where she bottled her feelings and cried onto her crosswords.

I distinctly remember one night when I was nine. It was late, eleven or so. I was supposed to be asleep, and I was, except for a frightening nightmare where a clown had loomed over my head and laughed as he threw pumpkins at me. I crawled out of bed and wandered into my kitchen. A usually warm room, with open windows and pots of sunflowers growing by the sink, it was full of uneven shadows and muffled hissing. I retreated behind the door, and listened as the voices grew clearer.

"If I didn't know better Clarissa, I would say you have depression." My father said.

"Jeff, I'm perfectly fine. It's just with Ariadne in school, and work being slow, I'm losing a sense of purpose..." my mother said wearily.

"Don't you blame this on her, Clare. This is not Ariadne's fault! You are in denial, and frankly I'm worried. I'm sorry if I haven't been around with the travelling to all the different Greek meets, but that's no excuse to just... _fade away _on me." My father's voice turned soothing.

"What happened to us, hun? Remember that trip to Versailles? And Prague? Where's that Clarissa gone, eh? The quiet, shy woman who I fell in love with, the woman who never let me ramble and always knew how to shut me up. Where's she gone, Clare?"

My mother was silent for a minute, before she finally whispered, "She died with that first baby."

I left then, and tried to forget the pain in my mother's voice, but it's not something you can easily shut out. I buried my uncertainty under paint and books. And eventually, when I was eleven, things began to change. I was still ten, my birthday in November, and the school year was beginning. And this girl walks in, and I swear she was the prettiest yet most put together eleven year old I'd ever seen.

Her name was Beth. She had white blonde hair that she never wore down; always in a braid or in ponytails. She wore jeans and sneakers, and wore rings on three fingers. I was in utter awe of her, of the foreign lilt to her accent, her crystal green eyes and her gapped teeth. And she chose _me_ as her friend. It was only in my teens did I feel the disappointment at the amount of attention Beth got, and the lack of attention I got. She was a tomboy as a kid, and we never played ponies or skipped with the other girls. We played soccer with the boys occasionally, but usually we went exploring the playground, searching for treasure and partaking in exciting adventures of our own creation.

But, I found out the hard way, that friendship only extends so far. When I was twelve, I could see the girls around me changing. They started wearing sport bras and smiling at the boys. Unfortunately for me, I had a more boyish, bird like body, and was miles away from the other girls. Beth told me in secret about how she'd gotten her period, and I went home and cried, asking my mum why didn't I get my periods, too. I tried to withstand our friendship, but then we went into Middle School and I began to paint more and spend long estranged periods in the toilets, wondering why I was there. Beth tried to help, but she found other, more interesting people to eat lunch with, and I eventually just became Ariadne, the bookworm that loves the toilet.

My childhood was a sunny and sweet place, full of summers spent in the back garden with my mum, and exciting excursions to odd, if somewhat questionable places with my dad. They did their best, especially my mother; she brought me to all my after school activities without complaint, she fed me healthy dinners and bought me new clothes went I wanted them, she cut my hair and bought me glasses when things got blurry, and she always kissed me goodnight and cuddled me when I was sad. She always tried so hard.

My father kept his own secrets well hidden from my eyes. I never saw him cry in the twelve years that I consider myself a child. He brought life and laughter to the house, and always answered my questions as best that he could. But my father was by no means an angelic soul, and had something harsh and cruel buried inside of his liveliness. I only saw glimpses of this cruelty now and then, but it was brought mainly to light when I was fourteen.

My childhood is the foundation of the person I am today. It inspired me to do the work that I do, my characteristics, my habits, my flaws. If not for my parents and the somewhat stable environment they brought me up in, I fear I would be somewhere quite different today.

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**Well, should I continue?! Leave a review with your thoughts **


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